


Running Free

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-26
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-28 01:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Tseng is sent to investigate reports of a monster in the Sector 3 train tunnels.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	Running Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karanguni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/gifts).



It was the middle of the winter. Above the plate, Midgar was coated in white snow, glittering with the light of brightly colored holiday lights. Down below, though, in the depths of Sector Three, there was no snow, just ugly brown-black puddles. Fiends grew out of them on occasion and started invading the train lines, and Shinra had to send a team down to clear them out a bit. It was usually one of the easier Public Security jobs.

The last two teams sent to this part of Sector Three had vanished, and someone had decided that a different approach was called for. Which was how Tseng had ended up being sent down to do some reconaissance, figure out what was causing the trouble, and eliminate it or report back and collect the resources needed to eliminate it on the next trip. The mission brief had described rumors of an unknown “monster” in the Sector 3 train tunnels, and one brief radio message from the second Public Security team as they moved out of contact about “orange lights”. No other traces of the Public Security officers had been recovered. 

The fact that the Public Security teams had vanished completely, instead of leaving behind a pile of torn-up equipment or a panicky radio message, meant there was a possibility of Avalanche involvement. Fiends could destroy a team so suddenly and completely that there was no evidence they’d ever been there, but so could people. 

In contrast to the usual dark looks and people scurrying away when he was out in public, no one seemed to notice Tseng in this coat. The uniform winter coat was sleek black, remarkably warm for its thinness, and flared dramatically in the wind; the “plainclothes” ones were made of the same material, but in various colors and designs. Tseng actually quite liked the pastel teal swirl design, but he admitted it wasn’t in keeping with the Turk image. Which was the point here, that no one would think he was a Turk. 

His first step was to take the train down to under-Plate Sector Three himself and see if there was anything obviously wrong from the train. There were no reports indicating anything more unusual than a Grashtrike infestation, which was pretty standard for the rail lines. So he stared out the window and watched as the train sped through the Corkscrew Tunnel and out through the plate. A few seats down, two women were chatting loudly; Tseng paid little attention until he heard “And I hope we don’t run into that monster! I hear it just watches the trains pass by, like it’s waiting for something.”

He looked up sharply, channeling his memories of his early days in Midgar. “A monster?” he repeated, loud enough to be heard. 

One of the women, a chubby blonde, looked at him with interest. “Are you new here, sweetie?” she asked. Tseng nodded. “There’s a monster that lives down here. People say it’s an escaped Shinra lab experiment! It kills everyone that comes near it, except it never attacks the trains.” 

Tseng nodded seriously, playing up the “clueless newcomer” role as much as he could. “I wish Shinra would do something about it,” the other woman said, somewhat bitterly. “But it’s no matter to them as long as it doesn’t touch the trains. It can kill as many of us as it cares to.” 

Tseng had to admit, that was pretty much correct. Shinra’s general opinion on under-Plate problems was that they were fine as long as they didn’t interfere with company operations or threaten to spill onto the Plate itself. Thus the continued existence of Don Corneo, one of the most unpleasant human beings Tseng had ever interacted with, and that semi-secured old research lab with the Behemoth underneath Sector 7. In the eyes of Shinra, the Plate and the company were the important parts and everything else could go rot. 

“I’m sure they’ll do something soon,” the first woman said. The conversation drifted away from the monster, and Tseng resumed watching out the window. It didn’t take long before he started seeing something unusual — where the Grashtrike webs had been thickly woven into nooks and crannies before, here they were nearly absent, and there was no evidence of burning as if a Shinra flametrooper team had come through recently. Not much ate Grashtrikes, but some of the larger fiends could. 

Tseng heard someone gasp further up the train before he saw the fiend himself. It was standing on four legs, but each of those legs was easily Tseng’s height, and stripes on its skin glowed orange in the darkness of the tunnel. It seemed like a monstrously huge wolf, like some of Hojo’s failed experiments Tseng had heard about in whispers. Projects to improve guard hounds, like the one that had created Rufus’s Dark Star, except Dark Star had been the only successful product of a years-long series of experiments. Protocol was that live specimens should be put down when a project was ended, but sometimes labs were simply locked up and abandoned. 

For about five seconds it loped alongside the train before breaking away and into a service pathway. The train was silent. Tseng watched it go, and the orange lights flicker on the walls of the tunnel like badly misplaced holiday lights. 

He had a Blizzaga materia with him, and his gun concealed in an inner pocket of the long coat. While the train tunnels themselves were pretty well insulated, if he could lure the monster out into the cold air, that would also probably hinder it; most of the similar monsters he’d seen were sensitive to cold, which was why the Turk standard equipment for going under-Plate now included a Blizzaga materia. 

He’d had to argue with Heidegger to get permission to allow them for every Turk, not just the most skilled ones; SOLDIER had their own tensions around who was allowed to carry high-performance materia, and Public Security was never issued them at all. There had also been the risk of a Turk getting mugged or pickpocketed for their materia; on-Plate residents were only allowed low-level materia, and while the laws were widely ignored, under-Plate residents weren’t supposed to have them at all. Tseng had pointed out that no one in their right mind attempted to steal from a Turk in uniform, and it was unlikely anyone would bother trying to steal materia from another random citizen. 

When the train arrived at the under-Plate Sector 3 station, where it was snowing gently, it was still quieter than it had been before seeing the monster wolf. Tseng joined the flood of people on their way out of the train, but instead of heading towards the slums the way most of them were doing, he turned to the gate that led into the train line’s service areas. It was locked, with an electronic scanner for Shinra employee ID.

A conductor descended on him just as he got the gate open. “That area’s off-limits, you need to get away from there,” the man called, approaching fast. 

Tseng unbuttoned the top few buttons of his coat, just enough to make it obvious what he was wearing underneath. “I need to get back there,” he said calmly. 

The conductor backed away almost as fast as he’d come. “Of course. Don’t mind me. Just please lock up when you’re done.” 

Tseng locked the gate behind him, as requested, then turned to face the service area. Dozens of pairs of greasy footprints, remnants of the half-water-half-runoff puddles that formed everywhere under-Plate this time of year, led into the service passageways. Tseng recognized some of them as Public Security uniform boots, but some of them clearly weren’t. How many people had this thing killed other than the Public Security teams? Had the reports never been filed, or had they gone missing somewhere along the chain between the person who cared enough to report a missing person and someone who could actually do something about it? 

The most recent footprints were from the Public Security teams, and since they’d clearly found the beast eventually, he decided to follow them. First, though, he paused to report in. His message was brief, indicating only that he’d found a suspected escaped lab project living in the Sector 3 train tunnels and was going to go take it down, but if he didn’t return it should allow someone else to come after him. With that taken care of, he turned to head into the tunnels. 

Tseng had the aid of a map, but he wasn’t sure the Public Security team had, at least the first one. Their path was meandering and inefficient. He opted to make it somewhat more efficient, removing unneeded detours and opting for more direct paths, until the footsteps ran out. After a certain point, the puddles stopped appearing and the grimy footprints of the Public Security team faded so badly that he couldn’t follow them. He opted to head deeper into the Plate, suspecting the wolf would find him eventually. 

There was a strange sort of tension in the air now. On the rare occasions Tseng had needed to visit Hojo’s personal lab, it had felt very similar. Something felt terribly wrong, and he couldn’t pin down exactly what it was. A train rushed past in the distance; dim emergency lighting glowed overhead; the smell of mako fumes and wet concrete pervaded the area. 

Farther down the tunnel, a patch of glowing orange light moved. 

Tseng’s gun was in his hand almost immediately. The Blizzaga materia was mounted inobtrusively in the grip, and he began charging his bullets with its icy magic as he drew closer to where he’d seen the light move. When he arrived, he found another hallway at that point, leading towards — he checked his map again — the train tracks. 

In the distance, the wolf howled. 

Tseng broke into a run, heading for the tracks where he knew the wolf was waiting. Another train would be coming soon, and he didn’t know what this wolf intended to do to it. 

When he arrived in the main tunnel, the wolf was sitting and waiting, tongue lolling out of its mouth, as he’d seen many dogs do. Dark Star tended to sit by Rufus’s desk the same way while Rufus was working. He’d expected it to be distracted by the train, but as the track lights began to flash red, indicating that a train was coming around the curve and workers shouldn’t cross the track, the wolf stood and began to pace towards him. 

Tseng brought his gun up and fired at the head, but the wolf lunged as he pulled the trigger, and he suspected his bullet only hit it in the shoulder. He dodged away, behind a pillar; it yelped in pain. He fired at it again, aiming at the center of the glowing orange streaks. The wolf screamed, in a tone that sounded disturbingly near human, and lunged at him again. This time, its claws tore at his coat, leaving it held on by only one button; the suit jacket underneath was in only slightly better condition. They’d protected his body, however, which was the important thing. He wasn’t sure they’d survive another strike. 

The red lights were flashing more rapidly now, and the light of the train’s head lamps was becoming bright. It would be coming around the bend at any moment. Tseng glanced out at the tracks, then bolted for the other side. The outer coat dropped away as he ran, leaving only the suit underneath. 

Struggling to move quickly with what looked like a broken shoulder, the wolf chased him. As it was limping over the tracks, the train whipped around the curve and slammed into its midsection. The wolf was sent flying by the impact, landing with a wet thump some distance down the tracks. The train’s emergency brakes screeched as the train skidded to a halt. Tseng took a deep breath and began walking towards where the train and the wolf had stopped. 

The orange lights on the wolf’s coat were flickering erratically now, and it was whimpering in pain as it struggled to get up; Tseng suspected the impact had broken its spine. Making sure to stay at a safe distance, he imbued another bullet with ice magic and lined up his shot with its eye. As the bullet pierced its brain, the wolf went limp, then began to fade into the lifestream. 

The sound of the train doors opening made him turn around to see an audience of train passengers. They stared in silence for a few moments. Finally, Tseng nodded politely and began to head for the nearest train employee break room. Either his phone ought to work in there or he could find another phone; either way, he could call for pickup and begin working on his final report. 

Behind him, he heard conversation pick up. Doubtless this would improve Shinra’s image in the slums.


End file.
